


That Which Is and That Which Was

by PuppiesRainbowsSadism



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, happy-ending character non-death fic, nonexplicit character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-15
Updated: 2014-10-15
Packaged: 2018-02-21 08:07:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2460989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuppiesRainbowsSadism/pseuds/PuppiesRainbowsSadism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s head is resting in Castiel’s lap, the angel’s fingers running through his hair, brushing it away from its face, braiding and unbraiding, twining flowers and his own feathers among the strands. Sam has his eyes closed in bliss. He can’t remember feeling so relaxed in his life, didn’t think it was be possible to achieve this level of relaxation and peace. He doesn’t think he could move his body if he tried. Not that he wanted to anytime soon.</p>
<p>                They might be in a field. Maybe in a house in a bed they share. Maybe even a bench on a busy street, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing exists outside of this moment – of himself and Cas just being together, taking as much time together as they’d like as they never could before . . . well, before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which Is and That Which Was

**Author's Note:**

> In Word, this is titled "Basically the opposite of He Kindly Stopped For Me." So, accordingly, I chose an Emily Dickinson poem about basically the opposite of tragic character death:
> 
> OF all the souls that stand create   
> I have elected one.   
> When sense from spirit files away,   
> And subterfuge is done; 
> 
> When that which is and that which was   
> Apart, intrinsic, stand,   
> And this brief tragedy of flesh   
> Is shifted like a sand; 
> 
> When figures show their royal front   
> And mists are carved away,—   
> Behold the atom I preferred   
> To all the lists of clay!

Sam’s head is resting in Castiel’s lap, the angel’s fingers running through his hair, brushing it away from its face, braiding and unbraiding, twining flowers and his own feathers among the strands. Sam has his eyes closed in bliss. He can’t remember feeling so relaxed in his life, didn’t think it was be possible to achieve this level of relaxation and peace. He doesn’t think he could move his body if he tried. Not that he wanted to anytime soon.

                They might be in a field. Maybe in a house in a bed they share. Maybe even a bench on a busy street, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing exists outside of this moment – of himself and Cas just being together, taking as much time together as they’d like as they never could before . . . well, before.

                Castiel brushes Sam’s hair back once again to place a kiss at his temple, whispering, “I love you,” against the skin.

                Sam opens his eyes a sliver and looks up at his angel, but he doesn’t reply. Not yet. They’ve long since decided that they don’t say “I love you” to hear it back, or as a reaffirmation of their mutual feelings. They say it because the other needs to hear it, so they don’t reply, just let the words soak in for a while.

                Castiel is a burning sun and a silver moon and starlight. He’s everything beautiful about the universe – Ursa Major and clear deep waters in his eyes, his wings dark like the eternal vastness of space and the comfortable silence when you close your eyes to sleep beside the one you love, his smile brighter than anything; Sam has nothing to compare it to. Their eyes meet, and Sam swears he can hear Castiel’s voice in his head. Not as clear as if he were to speak aloud, but vague as his own inner voice. But vague doesn’t mean unclear, and Sam understands every abstract thought. He wonders if Cas can hear him too, even as the angel leans down to kiss him properly. The kiss is the barest brushing of lips – the implosion of a sun at the end of its life, the explosion of a cell when cytokinesis fails. Sam wraps his arms around Castiel and holds him close. He never wants to leave this moment, kissing his angel. Whether it be a split second or an eternity is unclear and irrelevant. Sam hasn’t been able to keep track of time in . . . well, he doesn’t know. That’s the point. But he doesn’t need to because whether time be frozen or infinite, they own it, control it. They have it all and none of it and it is so, _so_ freeing to just lay in his love’s lap without having to worry about where they are or how long they have.

                Sam has no idea how long they kiss, beyond the fact that it isn’t long enough when he feels something painful, that literally pulls the breath from his chest – something has a hold of him at his very core and is _pulling_.

                “Cas,” Sam gasps, panicked. He can’t remember ever feeling anything like this, yet it’s familiar, and he knows exactly what it means.

                Rather than letting go, Sam clings tighter. He knows he can’t stop what’s happening, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

                “Cas!” he says again, and the words that follow tumble from his lips of their own accord. He barely understands them. “Please, I can’t forget. Don’t let me forget. I have to remember this, Cas, _please_!”

                Cas’s expression is unreadable as he raises his hand to Sam’s head once more, just as whatever was around them – the everything and the nothing – disappears.

~~~~~

Sam comes to with a jump and a gasp, his lungs filling with air, his stomach expelling blood with violent coughs. He hurts as he can feel his body restarting, each cell coming back to life.

                “Oh, God, _Sammy_!” Dean breathes, clinging to Sam even as he’s still coughing, but he doesn’t seem to care about the speckles of red on his jacket as he squeezes the breath out of his brother once more.

                Sam clings back, more out of instinct than anything, something to anchor him as his mind reels.

                He came to with a jump and a gasp – but not like a nightmare. He’s angry. He doesn’t know exactly why, but that doesn’t stop the anger from shooting through his veins as Dean holds him and rocks him and mutters a mantra of _You’re alright, Sammy, you’re alright._ Something is wrong. Something is very wrong, and that’s all he knows as his mind continues to spin.

                He’s somewhere dark, the ground hard, something poking into his side painfully, his head throbbing, his lips coated in his own blood, his trigger finger twitching, and everything is so confusing so confusing. No, Dean, he’s not alright he’s very much not alright he was more alright before . . . before . . .

                Then there’s the flutter of wings, a hand on his head, fingers pulling loose strands of hair out of his face.

                “Sam,” Castiel says, and that’s all he needs to say because Sam _remembers_. His mind settles and his pain is taken away, and he _remembers_. Remembrance only makes him more angry – this brand directed at his brother. How dare he pull Sam away from that glorious moment? How dare he rip that peacefulness and happiness from him?

                But then he looks at Castiel – rugged and road-roughened Castiel – who is everything beautiful in the universe. Their eyes meet, and Sam swears he can hear the angel’s voice in his head.

                They might be in the woods. Maybe in an abandoned warehouse. Maybe even in a house inhabited by a horrified family. But it doesn’t matter, because Sam knows – he _knows_ , without a doubt – what his heaven looks like. And Castiel’s voice in his head is saying that everything will be okay.


End file.
